The Money 70: A Great Place To Start Looking For Mutual Funds

As the latest issue of Money Magazine just arrived in my mailbox (review forthcoming), it occurred to me that a mention of the Money 70 might be in order during Mutual Fund Week here at The Simple Dollar.

What is the “Money 70″?The Money 70 is a list of mutual funds selected by Money Magazine and followed in each issue of the magazine. You can read the full criteria for selection here, but the basic nutshell is that the funds on the list are generally low cost, focused on shareholder interests, and have a consistent investment strategy. It’s really a healthy list of well-run mutual funds from a variety of investment firms with a variety of goals and strategies.

Does this list match your investment philosophy? As I mentioned yesterday, I generally like index funds because they provide diversity without much expense; however, the Money 70 list contains 43 actively managed funds and only twelve index funds. In my opinion, the twelve index funds they show are stellar and the truth is that there are simply far more managed funds out there than index funds because lots of investors either want to beat the market or want a fund that is really conservative that won’t sink in a down market, two things that index funds don’t really protect you from.

I could repeat the contents of the list here, but a simple link to the Money 70 list saves the effort and provides a nice summary table. If you find a fund on that list that looks really interesting, I strongly recommend looking it up at Morningstar, as discussed earlier today.

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